John and I were chatting about a ho-stack offense the other day. We agreed that it seemed to allow for some different movement patterns than the traditional vert-stack. We've both played on different teams that have tried to implement a ho-stack with similarly terrible results. In our estimation, the trouble with the ho-stack had little to do with the offense itself and a lot to do with how we practiced/played it.
In my experience, learning a ho-stack was A LOT of chalk talk and walk-throughs. There was a great deal of discussion about where each receiver should be going, what space belongs to what player, the importance of being the proper distance from the handlers, etc. Unfortunately, while this discussion did a great job of taking up valuable practice time, it did a very poor job of teaching us how to play a ho-stack. John said that his experience involved players who didn't really have the inclination to learn a new offense.
All of which brings me to the point of this post. The offense that you play really matters very little. The important thing is being able to execute whatever offense you choose. And the only way to improve execution is through repetitions. I don't mean that the seven offensive players have played ho-stack hundreds of times on different teams, either. The reps that matter are the reps that you get together as a team.
Can a ho-stack be better than a vert-stack for a certain group of players? Sure it can. Will simply instituting a ho-stack make that group of players perform better? Not a chance.
Look at your team. Pick an offensive set. Get tons of reps.
No argument, without practice they're worthless, but there's something to be said for having a repertoire to pull from. The more options you have, the more likely you are to dig up something the D is unprepared for.
ReplyDeleteFor sure. I think that the point of giving the D something they aren't prepared for is very well made. I love the idea of being able to shift as an offense into and out of different sets.
ReplyDeleteTo me, the key is to learn how to move in any offense first. If you know how to move as a team in an offensive set, you can transfer/translate those movements into other sets.
Part of me wanted to write a paragraph in the post about how offensive sets are only important for a small % of each offensive possession. Namely, they matter at the start of the possession and when flow fails and you have to reset.
But, I got the feeling that this wasn't exactly right. Truthfully, I know that offensive sets do impact the movement patterns of players throughout a possession. My idea is more that there are general offensive principles that supercede any particular offensive set.
If you can tap into these general offensive principles, then you can make any offensive set work.
exactly Galen, that's why we were beating team dark like a drum last week (for the first half anyway) we realized our in/out cuts weren't working too well, so we switched to H-stack and emphasized on side-side disc movement, it worked great until we started losing!
ReplyDelete